Shutdown: Bush's Fault?

MRCTV's Dan Joseph had a question on his mind that he couldn't shake: who bears the brunt of the blame for the government shutdown? Who really is responsible for the mess we're in right now? Is it President Obama or former President George W. Bush? He decided to take these questions to the heart of our misery: Washington D.C.

Despite the fact that "Dubya" has been out of office for the past five years, most of the respondents said former President George W. Bush is to blame for the shutdown.

As for health care, which is at the heart of the shutdown, one respondent said that, if Bush had proposed some sort of health care reform, all of this could've been avoided. Well, he did. In fact, there's a long history of Republican policy proposals to fix American health care.

The irony is that Bush's 2007 health care proposal is actually "superior" to Obamacare concerning universal coverage. As Chris Conover of Forbes noted last August:

"[T]he Bush plan actually was superior to Obamacare when it comes to providing universal coverage. Remember, Obamacare actually does not provide universal coverage. The latest figures from CBO says that when it is fully implemented in 2016, Obamacare will cut the number of uninsured by only 45%, covering 89% of the non-elderly. Even if illegal immigrants are excluded, this percentage rises to only 92%. In contrast, the Bush plan (without a mandate!) would have cut the number of uninsured by 65%."